


I Am Not Iron Man (But He Is)

by lazyiguana



Series: The Marvel Sandbox [1]
Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel
Genre: Again sort of, And then we have plot divergence as I have fun throwing in as many character cameos as I can, Follows the first Iron Man movie, Offscreen Violence, Pepper is Tony Stark's daughter, like where's waldo but with superheroes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-14
Updated: 2017-05-14
Packaged: 2018-10-31 20:11:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,276
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10906617
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lazyiguana/pseuds/lazyiguana
Summary: We all know how the story goes: Tony Stark is captured, builds a suit, and becomes Iron Man. But the devil's in the details: Wade Wilson has signed on as bodyguard for the two Starks, Pepper Stark is just as smart as her father but still very much eight years old, and Yinsen decides Tony is well-worth saving. In which there is a plethora of Marvel cameos, and a sheep.





	I Am Not Iron Man (But He Is)

**Author's Note:**

> I only own the sheep. Not even the cat is mine. *sigh*

 

Wade Wilson was an entirely unremarkable man. Clad in a dark suit, he was no more than another blank face drowned out by the sheer ebullience of the dazzling Tony Stark. The bodyguard went unnoticed by even the most muckraking tabloids, despite shadowing the billionaire at every gala and event the public was privy to, and nearly every one it was not. People glanced right by him, dismissing him as unimportant and dull.

People, Pepper concluded, could be rather stupid. Though she was young-- eight and three quarters, almost nine whole years old, thank you very much-- even she could see through the mask of ordinariness the bodyguard put up around others.

A large hand dropped in front of her eyes, obscuring her vision and halting her line of thought. “Guess who, Princess?”

She whirled, giggling. “Wade! You’re back!”

The blonde man beamed down at her and picked her up, spinning her around until she was dizzy and out of breath from laughing. “Your dad ended the last meeting early. He told them that they were going to act like children he had a much more mature one at home that he’d rather be with.”

Pepper laughed. “Acting like children? That’s rich, coming from him.”

Another voice carried over from the doorway. “And what’s that supposed to mean? Peps, you’re supposed to be on _my_ side!”

Wade turned to face Tony Stark, sticking his tongue out in taunt. “She likes me better.”

The self-proclaimed genius squawked in outrage. “Does not!”

“Does too!”

“Does not!”

“Does too!”

“Does too!”

“Does not!”

“Ha!” Tony pointed wildly. “You admitted it! Concede defeat to my awesomeness!”

Pepper sighed. Really, those two. Sometimes she felt like _she_ was the only adult here, aside from Jarvis of course, who was wisely staying out of the argument. She kicked Wade in the legs until he put her down and ran over to her father who obediently scooped her up into a hug.

“Dad! You took forever!” Pepper did her best to put both hands on her hips while keeping her balance in her father’s precarious grip. “You were gone for three days! That’s nine novels, two textbooks and half a coloring book! It was so boring!”

“Textbooks?” Tony blinked at her. “I thought you threw those out after you tried to dissect that fish?”

She squirmed. “Anatomy is gross, and tuna guts are grosser. But,” Pepper continued, brightening up, “this is economics! The relationship between aggregate supply and demand is so fascinating, even if the model is a bit oversimplified, and the concept of crowding out is so outdated. It should have been thrown out with the cassette and the typewriter,” she told him seriously.

Tony smiled down at his little girl. She was brilliant, there was no doubt about it. Not that there was any to start with; she was a Stark, after all, and genius ran in the family. And like any proud father-- he pointedly ignored the slight twinge that arose whenever he thought of his own childhood-- he was positive she would someday surpass him.

He let his thoughts drift for a moment. Virginia “Pepper” Stark would be great. Maybe a famous scientist, or engineer. Well, maybe not an engineer. Unfortunately, one of the few Stark traits she did not inherit was a love for electronics. She could take apart and rebuild a microwave just as well as any other kid, he supposed, but it wasn’t her passion. Politics, though... He’d seen her rip apart a senator’s argument and leave him a stuttering mess at the age of six just because she wanted brussel sprouts to be made illegal-- and he really couldn’t argue with that, brussel sprouts were just, well, blegh. Or maybe a designer. She liked drawing superhero costumes for all his bodyguards (apparently Marc and Jack and Wade were indestructible fighting machines but with “soft marshmallow fluff insides, like Twinkies!”) and him in various outfits from “classic businessman” to “the teddy bear you really are, Daddy”. Or--

“And what’s with all the different currencies?! We live in a modern world, not the Middle Ages! There should be one single unit of exchange to make transactions go more smoothly! Dad! Are you even listening to what I’m saying? This is important! The balance of the global economy is at stake!”

Or she could take over the world in the name of finance. That was fine too. It was unfortunate she wasn’t fond of Obie. He’d thought they would’ve gotten along really well.

Wade laughed at the Stark pair. He enjoyed working as the personal bodyguard to Tony Stark; the two treated him like a member of the family. And their quirks ensured his job was never boring.

He quietly left the room, and headed towards his bedroom. Stark Industries had pressured Tony into agreeing to visit a US military base in Afghanistan as a publicity stunt. The Army was planning to have an exhibition of Stark weaponry for the occasion.

Pepper would be coming too; she had never been left alone for more than three days, and as long as they stayed in the army base it was perfectly safe. Tony made a habit of bringing her along on his business trips anyways, in order to expose her to more of the world. They would leave tomorrow.

He hummed to himself as he packed his Kevlar vest on top of his clothes. After all, better safe than sorry. Wade carefully took his twin katanas down from their hooks on the wall and attached them to a harness that held them in an “X” across his back. He placed the harness by the door. Early on in his career, he had discovered that while hand-to-hand combat and proficiency with firearms were necessities for a successful bodyguard, the best of the field had an extra skill, whether it was the ability to turn any piece of silverware into a deadly weapon or the knowledge of practically every poison in the world. He himself had chosen to learn swordsmanship, perhaps a result of watching one too many Zorro films as a kid, and the katanas were his favorite.

Lastly, he strode to the bathroom to grab his bottle of medication. He had been diagnosed with mild schizophrenia as a teen, but fortunately it was minor and easily controlled by his daily pill. The bottle went into one of the outer pockets of his case, for easy access.

Early the next morning the Starks and Wade boarded the private jet. While Tony made a beeline towards the bar (non-alcoholic, of course; while he did drink from time to time he had abandoned many of his vices when Pepper came along), Pepper and Wade settled on the soft couch.

Pepper pulled out her coloring book and placed it on the coffee table, flipping to a blank page. “I have decided,” she told Wade imperiously, “that you need a new superhero costume.” She drew the vague outline of a man in black crayon. The left arm was a bit too short, the right leg a tad too long, and the head more resembled a squash than a cranium. Pepper was many things, but a gifted artist was not one of them.

Wade hummed in curiosity as he looked over her shoulder.

Pepper continued, filling the figure in with red. “It has to be red,” she told him seriously. Red was her favorite color, so her drawings tended to be mostly red. “Because red is cool.” Her dad’s favorite party suit was red too, after all (the gold was nice, but unimportant in the grand scheme of things).

She painstakingly added a black belt and harness. “And you need to hold your stuff.” Wade stifled an amused smile as she nodded up at him seriously. “Never underestimate the power of pockets.”

Pepper picked up the black crayon and started outlining sturdy boots. She added a few straps before moving on to the face. After thinking for a moment, she drew two large circles instead of eyes, and filled them in.

“What are those?” Wade asked curiously. “I hope my eyes aren’t _that_ big,” he teased.

She huffed at him. “Don’t be silly! They’re goggles! Like Catwoman’s!” _Batman Begins_ had just come out, and Pepper had been charmed immediately. She had persuaded her dad to buy her some of the comics, and once spent a week straight in costume (her elementary school teachers had been less than amused by the third day). She had even begged to get her own kitten, named him Niels, and had promptly learned she was allergic to pet hair. It had been a tearful goodbye when they had given Niels to a cheerful young high school intern.

Wade squinted at the paper. “Are they like sunglasses or something?”

“Or something,” Pepper asserted. “I haven’t decided yet.”

Tony interrupted them, sprawling over the couch on the other side of Pepper. “Whatcha doing?”

“Shh, almost done!” she hushed him, adding two blocky swords to the drawing’s hands. Bits of black were added here and there—“Padding,” she announced to no one in particular—and a pistol holster like the ones she’d seen cowboys wear.

Now for a name.

Names were tricky business. In her comics, superheroes had names that made absolutely no sense but still sounded cool. Really, one only had to look at Batman. He was named after a small flying mammal that _squeaked_ but still managed to strike fear into the hearts of the evil people. So clearly, Pepper reasoned, the name had to be a random but mystifying portmanteau (when the insufferable Madison had taunted her in primary school for mispronouncing “patriot” she had learned a long list of SAT words to constantly use in conversation; her dad had helped quiz her on them once he found out why she started carrying around a dictionary) that the hero would make awe-inspiring through awe-inspiring deeds. Wade was obviously awesome enough to make it work (need she mention the swords?), so she just had to come up with an appropriately weird alias.

“Dad? Random noun, go!”

Tony blinked. “Uh, pool?”

Pepper nodded. It was odd enough, she supposed. Now for an adjective.

“What _are_ you doing, Pep?”

“I’m thinking of a name,” she said matter-of-factly. “And it has to contain the word ‘pool’.”

Wade snorted, “What, like Liverpool?”

Pepper narrowed her eyes at him, “No, a _person_ name, duh. You need a superhero name.” She paused. It wasn’t a bad name, really. It just needed to be a bit vaguer. She started sounding it out. “Liverpool. Livelypool? Limpetpool? Livepool? Alivepool? Deadpool? Deadpool. Deaadddpoollll.” Satisfied, she wrote “Deadpool” in neat letters at the top of the page.

Wade leaned in to get a better look, rearing back when Pepper practically shoved it in his face proudly. “Deadpool? That’s my superhero name? It’s not very heroic, is it?” he asked delicately.

Pepper shrugged. “It’s better than an animal name. You could’ve been Marmot-Man.”

“No, no, Deadpool’s fine,” he said hastily.

Tony was guffawing loudly. “Oh, I don’t know. I think Marmot-Man would be a _fantastic_ superhero name for you.”

While Wade sulked, Pepper rolled her eyes and turned to Tony. “Dad, how much longer?”

He checked his watch and sighed. “Only six more hours to go, Pep.”

She groaned and slumped over. Like her dad, she did not handle boredom well. “Can we watch some TV? Please? Pretty please with a cherry on top?”

“Yeah, but let’s not watch _All in the Family_ again, all right? I hear enough bigots at work as it is,” Tony complained.

Pepper frowned. “Alright. Could we watch _Maude_ instead?”

“ _Maude_? What’s that?”

“You’ve seen it before, Dad. It’s about the cousin, Maude. Well, mostly Maude, anyways. She’s so awesome that she’s got her own show.”

Wade nodded, and pulled the remote from the coffee table drawer. He pressed a button and a screen swung down from the ceiling.

Tony huffed. “I should make that holographic and voice-activated. A remote and actual television screen is very last year.” He reached for the remote only to pout as Pepper grabbed it first.

“Maude first, holograms later,” she told him severely.

Wade watched on, amused.

The plane touched down five hours and fifty-four minutes later. (Pepper was absolutely not counting.)

Afghanistan was rather pretty, Pepper thought, surveying the landscape. She preferred the skyline of Manhattan but could see the beauty in this wild terrain. Worn mountains stood in the distance, stark against the startlingly blue sky. The area they were in was mostly scorching desert, but still gorgeous in its own right. In contrast, the military base that the landing strip belonged to seemed to mar the region with its stern functionality. Pepper shivered. The dichotomy was ominous and quietly threatening.

While the base was frightening, its occupants were anything but. Due to the multiple time zone difference, they had arrived in the late afternoon, so the rest of the day was devoted to getting to know the men and women serving.

Tony shook hand after hand while Wade traded stories about the area (he had shadowed a diplomat briefly several years before joining Stark Enterprises). At first Pepper hung back, slightly nervous at meeting all the unfamiliar faces. That quickly ended when a Major Danvers, a smiling blonde woman, whisked her away to some other servicewomen. They ended up discussing favorite television shows, and Pepper was delighted to find out one of the women enjoyed _Maude_ just as much as she did. Being an older show, it was growing increasingly harder to find someone who even knew of it, much less one willing to discuss the specifics with a nearly-nine-year-old. She also instantly befriended a smiley Theodore Olson, who while over twice her age was still one of the youngest on base.

The next day was more of the same, with an interruption soon after lunch.

“Rhodey!” Pepper cheered in delight. “I didn’t know you were going to be here!”

Lieutenant Colonel James Rhodes chuckled as he swung her around a few times before setting her down. “Well, I may not be Army, but I _am_ the Stark military liaison. That’s gotta count for something, right?”

“Are you going out in the fun-vee tomorrow with Dad and Wade?” she asked curiously. “Can I come? Please?” She pouted cutely at him.

He patted her head, muffling a laugh as her hands flew up to straighten her hair back and previously pleading eyes glared indignantly. “No can do, sprout. You know that. We’ll only be gone a few hours, and Mr. Olson will keep you company here.”

“Fine,” she sulked. “Me ‘n Teddy are gonna have so much fun we’re going to forget all about you and you’ll be sorry and miss us.”

Rhodes gave a dramatic wince. “Oh, woe is me,” he proclaimed. “I don’t know how I’ll ever survive that barb.” He picked her up and tickled her until she giggled and called uncle. “We’ll be back before you even notice we’re gone,” he promised.

She did her best to frown up at him. “I’ll hold you to that.”

Indeed, Pepper was still so jet-lagged that she once again slept well into the morning. It was easily ten-thirty by the time she wandered, yawning, into the mess hall.

Teddy was sitting at one of the tables, chatting with an officer (Pepper knew he was an officer because he had shiny bits on his jacket, though they were less impressive than Rhodey’s, she thought loyally), but broke off the conversation to wave her over. “Good morning, Pepper!”

“G’morning, Teddy,” she yawned back.

“This is Staff Sergeant Baski,” Teddy introduced them. “Sarge, this is Pepper Stark.”

Sergeant Baski offered his hand, and she gravely shook it. “A pleasure. Do you have eggs and bacon?”

He laughed. “Certainly, young miss! One wakey wakey eggs and bakey coming right up!”

Pepper followed him to the self-serve line. “And a biscuit?” she asked hopefully.

The morning passed fairly quickly. She, Teddy, and Sarge Bas (as he was forever stuck as in her head) played a bit of Monopoly dug out from somewhere until Sarge Bas had to leave for duties. Pepper and Teddy had a brief but vicious rock-paper-scissors battle over his left money and property cards, which Pepper won narrowly.

It was well after noon when they heard the first explosion. The base burst into action, people in tan uniforms walking briskly in all directions. Several more large _boom_ s sounded in the distance.

Major Danvers strode into the mess and towards Teddy and Pepper, face grim. “The convoy’s been attacked. Stick with me, in case we need to get you to a more secure area.”

Pepper could barely hear her own quiet voice over the deafening emptiness in her mind. “Attacked?”

Major Danvers nodded solemnly. “They’re fighting the hostiles off now. We’ve not heard anything else just yet.” She noted Pepper’s distraught face and softened a bit. “I wouldn’t worry. It sounds like just a small band of attackers; the convoy can fend them off.”

Sure enough, after a few more harrowing explosions, the desert was quiet once more.

:::::[[[]]]:::::

Tony woke slowly. There was a deep throbbing in his chest that was proving impossible to ignore, and a steady humming in the background that was too loud to be comforting.

He startled as a man’s face filled his vision. “Ah, Mr. Stark. You’re awake.” The older man pushed his shoulders down as Tony struggled to sit up. Tony batted his hands away and heaved himself upright, gasping at the pain that briefly ripped along his chest before subsiding. The unknown man caught him as he swayed. “Please, Mr. Stark, do not pull out the wires. I have put a great deal of effort into your survival, I’d hate to see it wasted in a moment’s carelessness.”

Tony blinked and looked down. Only to start heaving huge breaths as he caught sight of the worn-looking wires protruding from his bandaged chest. His eyes followed the wires to where they led to the generator he had heard. Blood rushed through his ears as everything else seemed to fade away as if underwater.

“Mr. Stark! Mr. Stark!” The man grabbed Tony’s face in his hands, ignoring the aborted flinch. “You are in Afghanistan. It is early afternoon, and you have slept for four days. My name is Ho Yinsen. I am from Gulmira, a small town in central Afghanistan. It is in the mountains, and rather nice this time of year. My wife and I liked to watch the sun rise over the mountaintops early in the morning and see the rest of the world awaken.”

Tony calmed as he listened to the soothing flow of words, slotting information into his brain on habit. Finally he took a last shuddering breath and slowly let it out. “What happened?” he croaked. “Why do I have—“ he broke off, consciously taking deep breaths to slow his racing heart. Which had— he could barely even think it.

Yinsen watched him carefully before holding a small cup of water to his lips. Tony gulped it gratefully; his mouth was so dry that he couldn’t bring himself to care about the warm temperature of the water. “I removed some shrapnel that were lodged in your chest. However, I did not feel comfortable removing some of the smaller pieces, at risk of causing greater damage to your organs. I instead convinced our captors to bring a small generator and used it to create a small electromagnetic field around your heart to prevent those remaining shards from moving further. Please do not remove the wires.”

Tony slowly moved his hand down from where he’d been fiddling with the bandages. “Captors?”

“The Ten Rings.” Yinsen’s face was grim. “A terrorist organization that has been growing quickly in influence in the area, largely due to the large quantities of weaponry they have recently amassed. Stark weaponry.” His eyes were piercing but not quite hostile, scrutinizing Tony’s every reaction.

“ _What?_ ” Tony lurched forward.

Yinsen continued, unperturbed. “Tell me, Mr. Stark, do you have a family?”

Thrown, Tony answered honestly. “A daughter, the light of my life.”

Yinsen hmmm’ed, his eyes never leaving Tony’s face. Tony could practically see information and plans clicking into place in his head. “I had a daughter once. Two, actually. I loved them and my wife more than life itself. I will help you.” His hands fell away from the wires they had been hovering over.

Tony gaped at him. “Did you just—were you—?”

The door gave a loud rattle and flew open. Three silhouettes filled the frame.

:::::[[[]]]:::::

Tony staggered back into the cell, leaning heavily on Yinsen until he could sit ungracefully on the pallet, cradling the car battery in his hands. It had been luck that Yinsen had been able to convince the leader to swap out the small generator for a car battery. It had taken a while but the elder man had prevailed, citing what were no doubt some rather convincing and logical arguments. Tony wouldn’t know; he was fluent in Italian and knew how to ask for a drink or pick up someone in a handful of other languages, but whatever they were speaking was beyond him.

He gazed around the room, taking it fully in for the first time. It was small and dirty, likely abandoned until the compound, wherever in Afghanistan it was, had been taken over by the Ten Rings. There was another small pallet on the other side of the table that he hadn’t noticed earlier. It had a body on it facing the other way, their face covered in bloody rags. He hoped it wasn’t a corpse.

Yinsen followed his eyes. “Ah. I’d nearly forgotten.” He bent over the body, checking their pulse. Tony followed (he really needed to figure out an alternative to this EM thing; the battery was getting heavier as the day grew longer).

“Who is it? Another imprisoned genius?”

Yinsen shrugged, the casual mannerism odd on his vaguely professor-ish demeanor. “I do not know. He was brought in when you were. They did not seem to know who he was but as he was wearing a suit and not a uniform, they likely thought he could be used as hostage.” He pulled back a grubby cloth on the forehead, revealing a badly-scabbing wound. Yinsen tsked. “Still not healing properly. He has only woken up a few times, once raving mad, once sobbing, and once laughing hysterically. I do not know when he will next awaken, or if he ever will.” He pushed some of the greasy blonde hair back and carefully placed the stained bandage in its place.

Tony’s stomach lurched. He thought this living corpse looked familiar. He swallowed hard. “May I see his face?” Yinsen obliged.

Tony stared down at his unmoving bodyguard. He swallowed again. If nothing else, he was glad the now-tattered business suit had saved Wade from being killed like the rest of the people in his vehicle. But he wasn’t sure this was any better.

:::::[[[]]]:::::

The armored suit was mostly finished when Wade stirred for the fourth time. He’d had a few of the episodes Yinsen had mentioned in the weeks previous, fits that were full of rage or confusion or, unnervingly enough, giggling. He had not recognized Tony at all.

Tony worked hard. Thinking of Pepper was an agonizing but powerful motivator to his plans. Seeing Wade in his state the icing on the proverbial cake. “Fix it,” he murmured to himself as he worked. “Be a goddamn superhero for once.”

Yinsen was a steady presence in those times. He didn’t talk about his family much, but enough for Tony to know the man wanted to destroy the Ten Rings even more than he did. Tony was finding it harder to regain his drive to work; he was so tired. But he had to fix things. Pepper was counting on him.

:::::[[[]]]:::::

Pounding darkness everywhere.

Loud voices crashing down on him, shouting and whispering and too much too muchtoomuch!

Flashes of sharp pain the irregular lightning to the dull thunderous throb of his aching mind.

Wade screamed.

:::::[[[]]]:::::

Tony jerked away from the metal arm he was working on as Wade let loose a bloodcurdling howl and convulsed violently. He and Yinsen barely managed to hide the pieces of armor and scatter the blueprints before the door rattled.

The leader, Raza (Tony had burned his name into memory; this man would not escape his vengeance), strode in after four of his men, barking orders as he went. Two men restrained Yinsen and Tony, and one loomed by Raza handling his gun menacingly while the fourth hauled Wade over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes.

Tony lurched forward, held roughly back by the man behind him. “What are they doing? Where are they taking him?”

Raza sneered at him, saying something in that rapid-fire dialect.

Yinsen’s eyes were sorrowful as he looked back at Tony. “He says a mere bodyguard is of no use to them. They will dispose of him so that he is no longer taking up precious resources.”

Tony frantically shook his head. “Tell them I need him! Tell them I won’t build a single thing unless I have him with me! They can forget about their missile if they take him!” he spat.

Yinsen translated Raza’s smug reply, faltering a moment. “He says a—a daughter is collateral enough.”

Tony’s howl of rage was interrupted by the slam of the door closing in front of the exiting terrorist’s darkly self-satisfied eyes.

:::::[[[]]]:::::

It had taken a while for Tony to calm down, but now he was stalking about the small cell, yanking at his hair as he thought out loud, “How could they have Pepper? She was in a fully-staffed military base and by now is in the States, guarded by Rhodey and Happy and all the best Stark money can buy. _How_ can they get past that? She’s not stupid; she won’t talk to strangers and she’s been taught self-defense enough that she wouldn’t make it easy to grab her—“

Yinsen had been quiet for a long time but now spoke up. “It seems to me that you have a mole in your midst. They knew where your armored caravan was when they first captured you, they knew you had an active hand in most of your company’s products, enough to know how to build a Jericho missile, and now they know Wade was your bodyguard. What you should be asking yourself, I think, is who do you know that also knows these things and has access to your daughter?”

Tony’s snarl was animalistic. “ _Stane_.”

:::::[[[]]]:::::

Eyes opened slowly, staring blearily into the bright sky.

Wade’s field of view was blocked by a curious white face. He twitched as the sheep tried to eat his hair. It bleated in his face and wandered off.

His skin burned in the hot sun, and the rocks underneath were hardly comfortable. It felt like he had burns all over his body. When did that happen? He didn’t remember much; just an explosion, then agony, then another explosion, more agony, and a glint of silver metal in a brief moment of lucidity—he was being carried, maybe?—before he lost consciousness once more.

He heard indistinct shouting and lolled his head. A tall shape approached, coalescing into a man that stared worriedly down at him. A sheep butted his leg.

The man asked something indistinguishable. Wade stared up at him.

The man repeated his question. The language was vaguely familiar, but still incomprehensible.

“Please, where am I? Who are you? How did I get here? Why do you have a sheep? Why do I hurt?” Wade croaked as best as he could, his questions devolving as his eyes crossed and he lost focus again.

He flailed in the man’s direction as his eyes focused once more. “Was it alien abduction? Where’d Tony go? Did they like his brain better than mine? He has a nice brain.”

The man was looking fairly alarmed now.

Wade blinked. “Of course it wasn’t aliens!” He scowled at himself. “We were in the armored transport, and it exploded. What happened next? Think!” He smacked himself in the head in frustration and gasped as pain ricocheted across his skull. A movement in the corner of his eye made him focus on the man once again.

The alarm seemed to have faded and been replaced by the concern from earlier. He smiled indulgently down at Wade when he saw him looking.

 _[Nice going. Now he thinks you’re an idiot too.]_ The unexpected voice was full of mockery.

Wade bolted upright. “Who said that?”

_[Congratulations, Wade-y boy. You’ve finally gone ‘round the bend.]_

:::::[[[]]]:::::

The funeral service was short and unbearable. There were too many people and not enough mourners, Pepper felt. She hid from them in her Dad’s arms. The sky was dark and overcast-- as it should be, she thought viciously. No one should be happy today. Not even the sun.

Pepper sniffled, pulling her face from her father’s jacket as they began walking back to the limousine. She clambered into the back seat, and froze.

“Peps, what is it?” Tony asked, concerned. He ducked in, and found her holding a package with shaking hands.

It was a present, badly wrapped in Christmas-themed paper (never mind it being September) and a messy scrawl neither of them thought they’d see again: _For Pepper_ , it said. _From your superhero._

Pepper hiccupped and opened the gift, careful not to tear the wrapping paper or the note on it. It was a cardboard box, and inside was a small, obviously home-made plush doll grinning out from under its red-and-black cowl, wearing a matching suit and a leather utility belt, with twin swords attached to its back. The stitching was ragged and uneven, and the fabric had clearly been recycled from something else—Tony judged some sort of uniform, given the durability and patchy faded quality—but the doll had obviously been made with care.

Tony embraced Pepper gently as she sobbed, from sorrow or relief or perhaps a bit of both, cradling the small plush Deadpool close.

:::::[[[]]]:::::

“I mean, yeah, the mechanics of the actual shooters were hard to work out, but then I realized that I could cobble some aluminum together from foil and cans and car parts, even though it took some time and quite a bit of effort to find something to melt them with and the fumes were noxious and likely quite toxic so I did my best to not breathe in during it. The chemistry was much easier. The compounds were fairly simple to synthesize; I based one off glue, which operates off the chemical reactions of methacrylate, you know, and another based on honey, which isn’t a reaction at all but rather molecular interactions, fascinatingly enough. But then I realized the webs needed to peel away without damaging surfaces so I looked at some post-it notes I had around the house, and adapted the spherical structure of its adhesives to--”

Spiderman stopped babbling and looked back at Deadpool, who had not spoken at all but rather seemed to be staring at him in a rather bemused, wistful sort of way. He rubbed the back of his head self-consciously. “What?”

Deadpool shook his head slowly. “You reminded me of someone I used to know.” Peter blinked, and this solemn Deadpool immediately became the version he was more familiar with, pulling something from his pocket and grinning wildly through the mask. “Hey! I bet three tacos I could hit that truck over there!”

“What? Is that a grenade?! Deadpool!”

 

**Author's Note:**

> Please drop me a review. Constructive criticism is more than welcome!


End file.
